


Moodboard

by firebird1980



Category: My stuff - Fandom, Writing - Fandom, non-specific - Fandom
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2018-10-05 18:43:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 6,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10314548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firebird1980/pseuds/firebird1980
Summary: This isn't fandom related, just my own imaginings/interpretations of things around me, written down so I remember them. I try and make them pretty.





	1. People #1 - the boy around the corner

His laugh drew you in first. Clear and loud and intoxicating; it was hard to ignore and impossible to not laugh with him.

His eyes caught you next. A gaze that could pierce you through and serious as the grave - except when they weren't. Then they lit up like fireworks.

It was his smile that hooked you. Hesitant until it wasn't, shy until he saw you staring, bright and beautiful and always always brilliant.

Then you learned his name. You learned his height (two inches shorter than he claimed) and his favourite colour and his dreams and his fears and the songs that get stuck in his head and what makes him laugh and cry and inspires him to keep living.

You learned his reputation. You learned about the girls he's slept with and the trouble he's been in and the girlfriends he doesn't talk to and the friends that he left, and you convince yourself he's not worth it. No one who hurts people that much could be good.

But then you see him the next day and he smiles at you across the classroom and everything else diminishes a little. But then you bump into him in the corridor and he asks if you're okay and you can't help but to be, when he cares. But then he shows up at your house to take pictures with you and hugs you goodbye, and you can't help but want to stay in his arms when he makes you feel so pretty. But then you get a message in the middle of the night wanting to talk about the universe, and all of a sudden it's four in the morning and you're laughing so hard you feel dizzy and you realise _"maybe this is worth it"_.

And it is worth it. For a while, at least. Then you fall in love with a different boy for a day or a month, and then you date a girl like sunshine, and then you're alone again, but not quite. He's always there, in the back of your mind, or in the messages he leaves that you save for bad times. He's never quite gone. When you need him, he'll be there, with his laugh and his eyes and his smile and his stories that never left your mind.

And sooner or later, you'll find yourself back at square one.


	2. People #2 - the girl from neverland

Can you miss someone it feels like you've never met?

I do. 

Not her, though. Not the way she is now. I don't know her nowadays. She's a mystery with a familiar face; covering her thoughts with a smile. She's a blank canvas, to me at least. Around others, she comes alive with a laugh that I don't recognise and feelings I've never seen. To them, she's plain to see. But I see differently.

I see her through memories. I see her through the stained glass windows of time, with images not yet warped by its passing. I see her smiling the way she used to, hear her laugh the way it sounded when I knew her. I hear her voice as clearly as if she was talking to me - because she never did, did she? Not face to face, at least. Yet we spoke, through late night messages and video chats when we laughed at the stupidest things and the little time we spent together and encircling all these memories is the love I had for her. It never faltered or faded, never changed - not even when she left. Because she loved me too. She told me so, every night and every day, as if it were the first and the last time.

She used to tell me her theories about the universe, about her heaven and her hell. She told me what she loved about herself and what she hated, and I never understood - because what was there to hate? She was the girl in the faded blue hoodie with the pennyboard under her arm. She was a drummer, a girl with headphones that blocked out the world and a voice powerful enough to drown out her own voices. She was the sleepy girl in the dressing gown that fell asleep against me. She was the dreamer, the realist, the writer, the escapist, the analyst, a million versions of perfect. And I loved them all. 

We loved so hard and so tenderly. And then we grew up.

I'm sorry I left your Neverland too soon. I'd still fly away with you if I could.


	3. People #3 - english class

Soft hair twisting around curled fingers

Piercing eyes behind brown glasses; each gaze is a challenge, a question

Voice like water, laughter like a bell

Oversized hoodies and hair falling over the same red hairband 

Relentless tapping on tables, feet drumming a rhythm as the book’s pages turned in her hands

Furrowed brows as she sketches out a character or a scene that springs to mind

Hands wildly gesticulating as she talks, gently pressing down on keys as her fingers dance across a piano

Beauty in a thousand forms.


	4. confessions #1 - regrets

1 - I'm sorry that I insulted your art by mistake that one time. I wasn't looking at it the right way and couldn't see what it was, and I could see that you were hurt. I hope you don't remember it, because I tried to make it better, but I still regret it.

2 - I'm sorry if I'm too handsy or touchy-feely, I don't mean to be. Please tell me if it makes you uncomfortable. I don't want it to push you away.

3 - I'm sorry that half the conversations we have involve me mishearing you and saying the wrong thing. I'm sorry for the awkward half-outing the other day, and the fact that I don't know how you responded. I love talking to you, I just wish I knew how to do it.

4 - I'm sorry to everyone I've stopped conversations with by coming out to, or doing it awkwardly and wrong. I'm still figuring out how to do it without ruining things. Picking a place and a time. I'm not very good at it.

5 - I'm sorry if I scare you by being too friendly. I admire you so much and I wish we were better friends, but it's unlikely to happen. For now, I'll stick with saying hi and the chats we have sometimes. I love them.

6 - I'm sorry that things ended weirdly between us, and that it's still hard to address the subject right. I don't miss us much, but I miss what we had. I'm glad we took a chance, even if it didn't work out. For what it's worth, it's still one of the best things that could have happened to me.

7 - I'm sorry about not noticing. I'm sorry for the way I acted. I was, and am, self-centred. I should have paid attention, seen the signs. I miss you. I'm glad you're better now. You know where I'll be. Right where you left me.

8 - I'm sorry for not knowing what to say to you anymore. You confuse me, honestly. But I miss us talking. I miss being able to say hi and laugh with you and the fact that you were genuine with me and I could be the same to you and it was all okay. Now I just miss you more. Even talking about talking hurts. But I hope you're happy. Message me sometime.


	5. confessions #2 - things i want

I want to be near you. I want to be comfortable in your presence, to sit next to you in companionable silence and be okay with it, to not struggle for words to fill the empty air. I want to stand next to you in a crowded room of people and know you won't leave my side.

I want to listen to you. I want to call you in the middle of the night and talk about nothing until the sun rises, to hear your voice ragged from talking, to laugh with you until it hurts. I want to hear your soft breaths down the end of the phone and to hear the stories you wouldn't tell anyone else.

I want to touch you. I want to feel the warmth of your hands and your fingers interlocking with mine, to feel your thumb sliding over the back of my hand. I want to run my hands through your hair and along the curve of your jaw, just to know that I could.

I want to hold you. I want to curl into you and to feel safe in your arms, to bury my head in your shoulder and hide away from the world without having to let go. I want to be pulled close to you and held as tightly as you can, to sit in your lap and feel at home.

I want to kiss you. I want to stand on tiptoe and link my arms behind your head, to pull you in close and feel your lips against mine. I want to know if your lips are as soft as they look, to brush the hair out of your eyes and to lean back in, to know you'll do the same.

I want so much from you, or so it seems. But really, I don't want much at all. All I want is for you to want me too. That would be more than enough.


	6. an open love letter - to the girl i can't shake

You're like an earworm to me. You've been stuck in my head, on my mind, with me, for years now. I know I said I'd never forget you, and I never have, promise. But seeing you again, talking to you... I can feel myself falling again.

It was painful enough last time. I spent so much of my time thinking about you - pining, hurting, hoping desperately that part of you felt the same. I convinced myself that you never would, and the way things ended proved that for me. I cried for three hours when you told me that we were better without each other, you know that? Seeing you the next day was torture. I wanted to tell you then. To walk right up to you and scream at you and tell you that I loved you I loved you I loved you please god don't let me go. But I couldn't. And I didn't. And slowly, surely, I got over you. Step by step, one less skip of the heartbeat every day I saw you. I convinced myself I was happier, and I was happy. I still am.

But then...

Then I got your message, and it was like finding that a side of you had been missing to me all along. I saw what you'd done and how you'd hurt in not hurting me, and I swear, my heart had never ached so much for you. Not out of pity - I know you've never liked it. Quite simply, I wanted to be with you. To hold you tight and help you and make sure that you never wanted to hurt again. I told myself it was out of friendship, of the warmth that I still felt - and feel - for you. I was right about that.

When you told me how you had felt about me, part of me broke a little. It was beautiful and harrowing, knowing that everyone else had been right, so, so right, and that we just hadn't realised how we'd felt for each other. I still wonder what would have happened if we'd known at the time. Would we really have run away together, away from the world? Part of me wants to still.

When you told me about the girl, it didn't hurt. I'd pushed you out of my head for so long that I was numb; watching the two of you didn't make me jealous. I had my own issues, and I wasn't ready to accept you had what I'd always wanted. But I was still a little too interested in what happened between you. And I was far too ready to drop everything when she hurt you.

Then we started talking again, and everything is so close to being right, but it's different now. We know each other better now, I think - maybe we're just being more honest. We talk about different things with the same perspectives now, and it's nice to think that after everything, part of you still trusts me. We've both grown and changed, but one thing for me is still the same. 

I am so, so scared of falling for you.

It's going to be worse this time. This time, there's a chance - and I can spend my time torturing myself with what could be. Because what if, what if you did feel the same? I'll never ask; the answer scares me more than anything. I'd rather be hurting than hear the truth. 

I can feel myself going already. My thoughts twist and turn and creep back to you, no matter how I try and control them. I catch myself thinking of you when I hear the old songs, and it's so bittersweet because how can I listen to them again without reliving that familiar twist in my stomach whenever I looked into your eyes? I fall asleep at night wondering how things could change, and it hurts because I've realised I'm keeping a list of what I would do if I could ever fill her shoes.

I can feel myself blushing when you look at me again, and realising it only makes it worse. There's so much I need to do, but I can't find the space because slowly and surely my brain is drowning in the colour of your eyes and you're branded sharp and bright behind my eyelids and I can't escape you. I'm not sure if I want to. I'm not sure if I want this to end, because I can't face losing you again. The world doesn't look the same without you taking up my vision. 

There's so many things I'm unsure of when it comes to you. How to act around you, what is right and what is wrong and what suits us, even the way I feel. But I know for sure that when you told me about your scars, I hoped that she kissed every one of them and told you that you were beautiful, because god knows I want to. I hoped that she pushed the hair off your forehead where it falls and smiled when you kissed her, because god knows I wish I knew what it felt like. I hoped that she kept every note you wrote her and keeps them for when she feels bad, and I hope that the thought of that still makes you smile. But most of all, I hope - and hope it is, because this is no longer in the past - I hope that one day, maybe I could do what she did for you again. Maybe even better. Because she may have been confused about you, but I know what to do; there's only ever been one choice. To make you happy. And maybe someday, I could be the person that can. But until then, I'm here. 

If you want to find me, you know where I'll be. In the treehouse by the castle, waiting for the stars. 

-forever and always yours.


	7. emotions #1

words are inadequate but they're all i have left, even if it feels like they're being carved out of my stomach, wrenched out of hiding of the dark crevices of my brain, and every word forced onto the page is an effort, carrying its own pain and guilt and the cursor is staring at me like a slap to the face as i'm searching for words that should be pouring out of me but instead makes me feel like i'm running dry, because how can i make jokes and use wordplay when every word, every one-liner and pun and piece of wordplay links back to you? i think of you and i'm twisting with worry because how can you just leave like that, leave and not reply and make every second tick past just that little bit slower as i dread not hearing from you again? how dare you do this and think it won't hurt? that it's fine, because we don't care, because that's not right. it's not right at all because what if i'm right right now and i never hear your voice again? how can there be spaces in conversations where you should be and an empty headset and no laughter that's just that little bit too loud? how dare you think that this is it, that she was endgame and ending it makes things better? because you know i'm right and you know how much that hurts and how the fear in me is dripping through each letter i type and how i'm so close to crying because, because why? i don't know but all i do know is that you're not empty like you think, you're not incomplete and without you here there's no way to convince you otherwise and you think my comfort is comfortless because the words spilled out of me when you spoke but now i'm alone and you're hurting alone and i want to be by your side even in silence because at least then i know you're alive and maybe not well but less hurt than you would be sat with your legs dangling over the edge of your window and thinking of a pistol, what kind of healing is that? your smile is burnt across my vision and your laugh grates in my ears painfully because i don't know when i'll hear it again and that scares me more than anything else could. look at what you're taking down with you. the book of your quotes is sitting on my bed and i keep thinking that maybe i'll never get to give it to you and how can i look at it again knowing you might never read it? i can visualise every situation laid out in that book and i'll never want to again if you can't look back on them too. losing you would be like losing half of my mind, a love, a friend dearer than family itself, a piece of me, and i know i said that no one is incomplete when they lose someone but what i didn't say was that the loss stays with you, because that's not what you needed to hear, and losing you is worse than losing a lover. you'll lose the passion with which you felt for her in time, but the ache of losing you forever would forever burn.   
don't go, please. stay with me a while and we can sit in silence together. then i can tell you the fear of loss and how to live. and love again. and keep going.  
but all i want now is to stop this wait. and to stop the sickness i can feel down to my bones and pulsing through my blood and to know you're still here. that's enough.


	8. an open love letter #2 - to the one that could have been

"I'll get back to you on that." That's how you left it. How is that an ending? Who says that and leaves you hanging? You do, apparently. Because if someone likes you and wants to be with you and spend time with you, that's how you should treat them. What happened to honesty? What happened to staying friends? Clearly you don't want to, and that's fine. But that's not how you end things.

I know this because it's been five days since you sent that and never replied and another week on top of that since the last time we spoke. Which makes it eight days since we last saw each other and the last time I really spoke to you over two weeks ago. And that's such a small amount of time but how much went into that? How many crammed together hours to talk to each other and whose hands in whose hair and running over whose face? How much attention and care went into those few weeks? Too much, from me. Not enough, from you.

I understand, I do. I know I can come on too strong sometimes and I know maybe that puts you off and you need space, I get that. I don't want you to be overwhelmed. But how will I know how to make things better if you tell me it's fine and then never reply to my texts? You said you liked honesty and I deserved someone who didn't fuck me over. Did I deserve you?

The answer to that is no, I didn't. Not because of that - because you were so much better than me. And I miss you. Maybe I didn't know you so well, but in the small amount of time I got to know who you were I missed you every second we didn't talk. You made me feel so stupidly special, do you understand that? I was practically giddy when I spoke to you. You told me I was beautiful and that I was doing everything right, but what made it go wrong? What did I do that changed your mind in the space of a day?

I miss you so much. I miss your hands and how they felt tracing my palm as you read the stars for me and the way they felt running through my hair and the way that you looked at me like nothing else could be more important. I miss the sound of your voice and your laugh and your terrible French and your accents that made me want to die a little bit inside. I miss your humour and the way that you sat so close to me that I could feel the warmth of you heating my own skin. I miss your denim jacket and your shoes and the way you pushed me to do things no one else would. I miss your brain and your stories and the way your life in so many ways mirrored mine. I miss the way you could tell me things would be fine as you pulled the flowers out of my hair and my hands ran though yours and I would believe you. I miss you so much and I don't know if it's you I miss more or the idea of what we could have had. I can't help but wonder what it would be like, even though I know I shouldn't. Even though we're done now, and we were never a something to begin with.

I can't help but feel lost without you.


	9. an open love letter #3 - the best thing about you

"What's the best thing about me? Quick, off the top of your head." you say over the phone one night. It's quiet, and you're trying to get a response out of me, to make me laugh, provoke a conversation.

_What's the best thing about you?_

Well, I like your hair. It's soft and pretty and I like running my hands through it when we're lying together in bed. Sorry if that hurts, by the way.

I like your eyes. They're always warm, and I can't make up my mind what colour they are, despite the amount of time I've looked into them. I like the way they look at me, like they're laughing at me and still loving. And I like the way that you can make my stomach twist with one look.

I like your voice, and your words. The way that your accent shapes your speech is endlessly fascinating, and I could listen to you talking for hours. I like listening to you rapping and I even like your silence, when we can say nothing for hours and still be comfortable. I like that your words are so controlled, and I love listening to the way you talk when you're close to me, like the words are slipping out of your grasp.

I like your breath. When it's soft, and I can lay my head on your chest and feel your heartbeat and the rising and falling as you're breathing, and your arm wraps around me and I feel safe. And when you're out of breath, or when you can't control it - when it's jagged as you inhale and shaky as you release it, when it jumps and wavers and speeds up and you have to stop to calm it down? That's even better.

I like your hands. They move as if you're not thinking about them half of the time, like your mind isn't quite in control of them. Shuffling a pack of cards or tapping to music or endlessly fidgeting; I like that. But I like it even more when they're still, and slow, and their movement is considered. When they're holding mine and your thumb brushes the back of my hand, or moving down my back or up my thighs, and it's like you're reveling in what they do. They make me come undone.

I like your laugh. It bursts out when you don't expect it or you can't hold it long enough, and it's infectious. I like the way that you can make me laugh just through your own laughter, in the way that it consumes any emotion but joy, coursing through your whole body, lighting up your face, your eyes. It's soft sometimes too, and quiet. A small exhale of sound, barely there, just enough to show you're listening. But it never leaves your eyes.

I like your lips. Watching you speak is beautiful, because I watch your mouth and I remember what it feels like when you kiss me. I watch and I feel every place on my body that your lips have touched and I could get lost in that feeling for days. Or when your face is millimetres away from mine and when you whisper our lips brush but you lose if you kiss me, so you tease, every move being another _almost_ and it drives me crazy, because you're right there and I've never wanted anyone like I want you.

But when you ask me what I like best about you, I can't answer. I make some joke and say who says that I want you, because in all honesty I don't know what your best quality is. How can I pick and choose between the things that make you who you are, when it all makes up the same person? The boy who kisses me outside the gates and alone in my room is the same boy who teaches me games and buys me chocolate when I don't expect it, who calls me every night to make fun of my music taste and the way I talk, who makes me worry but also makes me so incredibly happy. So maybe the best thing about you isn't one single thing. It's the fact that out of anyone you could have become, this is what makes you up. The best thing is who you are, and the fact that I get to call you mine. I like you.


	10. confessions #3 - what's missing

I'm slowly starting to forget you now. I can't picture what your face looks like when it's moving with the same ease that I used to. I write down the conversations that stick in my head because they matter to me still, but it's hard to remember what your voice sounded like when you said the words that moved me. There are memories that have stayed with me, but when I try and recall them in clarity the details start to blur and I have to stop in case I mess them up.

The thing is, my brain wants me to move on, I think. But my heart isn't done with you. When I can't quite remember something you said or did, the panic that grips me is immeasurable, because it feels like I'm losing another piece of you, and I'm not ready for that. What we had was unique to us and I know nothing will ever replace that experience, but I still cling onto it with everything I can, because in all honesty I don't want to replace you with somebody else. When I'm falling asleep at night, it's memories of you that I fall asleep to. You're in my dreams and the places I go to hide from you. When I look around my room, I can still see you sitting on my bed or messing with the speaker on my desk. In my bathroom, I can stand in the spot where you kissed me. Even in school - I still picture you sat in the lighting booth, making faces at me down on the stage. It pisses me off that I can't get away from you (how am I supposed to move on when everywhere is associated with us?) but I know that the second you really are gone, when you leave this place, it's going to break me. It's only really hitting me as I'm writing this how much I still miss you; it's been almost two months and I haven't cried since you broke up with me but I'm slowly realising how much I still care about you. I don't want to lose you, even though I already have.

I wonder whether you think about me as much as I think about you. I know you don't miss me, and I don't hold that against you, because that's just who you are, and I wouldn't want you to say you were something you're not for the sake of making things easy. I haven't left your life for good - after all, you don't forget your first relationship - but I know how easy it was for you to cut me off. Part of me wishes we hadn't planned long term just to make it easier now, but I know that really I don't regret anything that made us happy at the time. And it did make me so happy, my god, I don't think I've ever been the same kind of happy that I was when I was with you. I keep imagining that you're going to come back to me and tell me that you were wrong to break up with me, that you've missed me all this time, that all you wanted was for us to be together, but that's not going to happen. It just hurts me to think that maybe you've already found another girl to hook up with or someone else that makes you feel the same way I did. Because I really thought that we had something special. But I guess it's something to know that I was the first person to make you know what that felt like. I just don't want you to feel the butterflies that I gave you for someone else.

I went back to Imogen's yesterday. It was the first time I've been back there since the night that you kissed me, so I guess things have come full circle. I keep thinking about that night, and that kiss, and what you said, and how much it drives me crazy that everything comes back to you. This is the first time I've been able to write something since we broke up, so maybe things are getting better. I just don't think I'm ready for them to yet, if it means losing you.


	11. thoughts #1

"Be selfish" she tells me, with a smile halfway to a smirk stretching across her face. It's not the first time she's told me, nor will it be the last, because it's what she's been pushing me to do since I was fourteen. Be selfish. Step on the others, seize the opportunities you get, snatch the credit that you deserve with both hands and wear it like a label round your neck saying: here I am. I did something worth being proud of. And I would, I really would, because I know my worth, I know what I'm capable of. I'm not shy of the spotlight, and I'm definitely not the kind of person to let someone else claim what's mine as theirs. That's not me.

Why, then, do I find it so hard to stand up for myself? Why is it so difficult to look someone in the face and say, no, this is what works for me, this is what I'm going to do? Am I really that easily led? I know that people say it; that I'm a pushover, a people pleaser. That the right person could look me in the eyes and tell me to give up my time, my successes, my everything and I'd drop it all for them. And to an extent perhaps they're right. I am kind. I am a good person. If someone needs me, I'll help them, because that's just what do. If someone comes to me and says that I'm the only person who can fix things, then I'll damn well give it a try. But I'm not going to give up my life and being to someone who wants me to fix them. I was burnt by that fire before. It won't happen again. I'm stronger than I was then, and if something hurts me, I'll let it go.

Am I afraid of being selfish then? Maybe. It's easy to say that I can do it, to demand what I'm worth and what I'm good at, to wrench grudging respect from people's hearts and minds and show that I know what I want and that _I can do it_. But when I'm confronted with it, when someone tells me that they're not happy with what I'm doing, when someone says that I should just go with what everyone else wants, I can't help but be drawn in. Maybe it's just a desire to be easygoing, to blend in with the majority, to be the peacekeeper and make sure everyone else is happy. Maybe it's because I'm afraid of the responsibility of selfishness, of the independence that comes with it. Or maybe I'm just afraid of being angry.

I feel like that's a lot of it, that last one. I can't remember the last time I was properly angry, you know the kind. The kind of angry where your fingernails are digging into your palms and your voice rips itself from your throat to scream the words that you kept in your head for too long, just to watch the other person get hurt. When you _want_ the other person to get hurt. When it gives you a twisted, awful joy to watch them realise how you've been hurting, that just about balances with the sickness of knowing you're now the one hurting them. It's been a long time since I've felt that. I don't even know if I know how to feel like that any more. Nowadays, I'm not cruel with my words like I used to be. I'm softer, and sweeter. People don't take my anger seriously, because it comes with tears. When I walk out, I'm overreacting, being stupid and irrational. I'd like to hurl words at them that would make them cringe away from me. I'd like to hurt them. I want to feel that power in me again, just to know I've got it. But I know that once you've done that to a person, once you've pushed them past breaking point, they'll never look at you with entirely the same eyes again. And I need to know that people won't get hurt by me. I need people to need me. Anger and selfishness go hand in hand for me, because no one takes my earnestness with the same seriousness as everyone else's, and I need to know people hear me. It's not safe for me. Or them.

So maybe I'll fix things for myself before anyone else someday. Maybe I'll figure out how to make myself happy before checking on everyone else. Or maybe I'll finally be able to cry it out and have the people I care about know that it hurts sometimes, looking after them. But I don't know. It takes time to be happy. All I know is that I'm getting there.


End file.
